Favorites

Code Tools

Code Beautify – “Online Tools like Beautifiers, Editors, Viewers, Minifier, Validators, Converters for Developers: XML, JSON, CSS, JavaScript, Java, C#, MXML, SQL, CSV, Excel”. This site is totally awesome. It has everything from code beautifiers, validators, converters, formatting, web viewers, to other tools. I use this site a lot and it is extremely helpful.

Color

Adobe Color CC (formerly Kuler) – “Create color schemes with the color wheel or browse thousands of color combinations from the Color community.” This is probably the best color tool out there and I have been using it for years. Create your own palette or upload an image to get a palette. Everything is also customizable so you really don’t need to look any further and with an account, you can save your palettes.

Documentation

DevDocs – “DevDocs is a fast, offline API documentation browser with 100+ docs including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Python, Go, C, C++, jQuery, and more. DevDocs combines multiple API documentation in a fast, organized, and searchable interface.” I think that this is one of the best sites for documentation. They cover practically everything. This is a site that I use regularly and is a favorite of mine.

eCommerce

WooCommerce – “The most customizable eCommerce platform for building your online business”. WooCommerce is a free, powerful, and extendable eCommerce plugin that helps you sell anything, beautifully. This is definitely my favorite eCommerce solution. You can find lots of free themes for WooCommerce also. If you want to get an eCommerce site up and running quickly, this is definitely the best choice.

Education

Coursetalk – “Student reviews of online courses in Computer Science, Business, Design, Data Science, Humanities and more”. This is the first place that you should start when looking for an online course. The reviews are from fellow students that have taken the course you are interested in. This will help you in not wasting money on a course that is not so great.

freeCodeCamp – “Learn to code and build projects for nonprofits. Build your full stack web development portfolio today. ” This training site is totally free and is such a great resource for learning about development. I have found that some of their steps in their courses don’t give you enough information to complete the next task, but they have a great community that can help you. It will also make you a better Google Search user when trying to solve the steps and progress. I started with them but then decided to do some additional training on the following two sites. After I did this I was able to complete most of the steps. They also give you certificates of completion which you can add to your website and post on LinkedIn.

Pluralsight – “Unlimited online developer training, creative and IT courses authored by industry experts. Learn the most in-demand tech skills from our extensive library.” This is a little expensive, but totally worth it. I have done many classes on here and they are great. Their overall quality is really good and they stick to the same type of template for each class, so that’s great for consistency and what to expect from course-to-course.

Udemy – “Udemy is an online learning and teaching marketplace with over 42,000 courses and 14 million students. Learn programming, marketing, data science and more.” I have done a bunch of classes from here and have learned a lot. This site has some of the best classes but also some of the worst. This site is for teachers to make a course and sell it, so there are many different teachers. I would suggest looking at the top selling and highly rated courses. If you find a teacher you like you can also see other courses that they teach.

Hosting

SiteGround – “Hosting services crafted for top speed, unmatched security, 24/7 fast and expert support! Trusted by more than 500,000 domains.” This is the best host I have ever used before. They can host any type of site, have 1-click installs for WordPress and Joomla, and a free CDN. They are a little different with their plans. For example, the amount of web space in their plans. It seems odd, but really, unless you have a massive amount of media on your site, you won’t use all of it anyway. I have had a web host since 1990’s and the one thing that is more important to me than most anything else iscustomer service. You can call or live chat with their support team 24/7. What is even better is that they treat personal sites exactly the same as big business sites. Of all the hosts that I have had, this is by far my favorite and I don’t plan on switching from them. I will not get into specifics for liability reasons, but I have personal experiences and would stay away from GoDaddy, 1and1, Bluehost, and HostGator.

IDE

WebStorm – “WebStorm is a lightweight yet powerful JavaScript IDE, perfectly equipped for client-side development and server-side development with Node.js.” This is by far my favorite for an IDE. It can literally handle almost everything.

NegativeSpace – “Beautiful, Free High-Resolution Photos with No Restrictions. Whether for personal or commercial use, all of our beautiful high-resolution stock images are completely free to use in your projects.” This site is great for finding free stock images for your web projects. They have a lot of different categories like business, landscapes, technology, art and design, food and drink, nature, and more. This is one of my go-to sites for photos. Make sure to sign up for their newsletter too.

Images

Unsplash – “Do-whatever-you-want free HD photos. Gifted by the world’s most generous community of photographers”. This site is all about free HD images. I have gotten so many images from them. I use the images for projects, color schemes, and some of the photos are so awesome that I use them as desktop wallpapers. Make sure to sign up for their newsletter.

Legal

Rocket Lawyer – “Manage all of your legal needs online. Create legal documents and legal forms instantly with safe & secure storage, e-signatures, and lawyer review.” This site is great and you can get most of your legal needs done like contracts, agreements, etc.

Music

A Soft Murmur – “Mix ambient sounds together to wash away distraction and help you focus or relax.” This site is great because there are individual sounds that you can mix and match to your liking by adjusting the volume on each one. This is one of my goto’s when I am working or relaxing.

Calm – “Relax with Calm, a simple mindfulness meditation app that brings clarity and peace of mind into your life.” You can choose from different sound themes.

Hipster Sound – “Ambient coffee shop sounds to give you an easy creative boost. Combine the sounds into your own unique sound environment.”Great for different environment sounds like a cafe, a restaurant, rain, and positive sounds. This is another site that you might want to use while you are working or relaxing.

Rainy Mood – “Rainy Mood is the world’s most popular rain simulator. Sleep, study, and relax with the sound of rain.” A simple site for the ambient sound of rain. I listen to this a lot when I am working or just relaxing.

Newsletters

And.co – “From proposal to payment: A proactive app to give you more time to do what you love – your work. Start For Free.” This is a free site that could really help you with starting to freelance. If you sign up with them you will get on their email list, which I love. It gives you lots of information about freelancing and traveling. I love it because of the awesomeness of their information.

CodePen – “CodePen is a social development environment for front-end designers and developers. It’s the best place to build and deploy a website, show off your work, build test cases, and find inspiration.”

This is another top favorite of mine. Their newsletters are jam-packed with great info, podcasts, tutorials, lots of different projects that users have created on Codepen. They also include jobs for Designers, Developers, and Engineers. If you are interested in any of their meetup groups they are also listed at the end of their emails.

Creative Bloq – “Art and Design Inspiration. Daily inspiration for creative people. Fresh thinking, expert tips and tutorials to supercharge your creative muscles.” This is a very good newsletter for designers. It is mostly design related but also has occasional info about coding too. It also gives you links to design related tutorials. The site is also great and has tons of information about design.

CSS-Tricks – “is a website about websites. Tips, Tricks, and Techniques on using Cascading Style Sheets.” This newsletter is focused on CSS of course. Their newsletters give you links to projects on CodePen, great information on design and development, analytics, backend stuff, tutorials, and links to other information. They also have a really good blog that you should check out. This is a must-have for anyone that works with the internet and is a personal favorite.

Envato Elements – “opens up a world of creative possibilities for all your design projects. Powered by a community of talented designers, our subscription puts a great design in reach for everyone”. This site and its newsletter gives you tons of free stuff (web and print templates, graphics, video, audio, 3d, code, WP themes, social banners, icons, photos/assets, actions/presets, illustrations, mockups, backgrounds, fonts). They also give you links to Free Files, Curated Collections, and Fresh Finds. This is a great newsletter to sign up for and a great resource.

Envato Market – “Over 3 million digital products created by a global community of designers, developers, photographers, illustrators &amp; producers.” I really like their newsletters and their styling. Their weekly emails are full of all sorts of information as well as freebies. I have gotten all sorts of stuff from their newsletters and their site like web/mobile/print/PSD templates, graphics/images, audio files, 3D stuff, WordPress themes, PHP code/scripts, video/audio files, and more. You should sign up for their newsletters and check out their site.

Smashing Magazine – Smashing Magazine is an online magazine website and an online community for Web Designers and Developers, UI/UX Designers and Developers, and more. They have awesome resources for pretty much anything relating to the web and their newsletters are one of my favorites.

They also offer a job board as well as information on CSS, HTML, JavaScript, jQuery, Responsive Web Design, and the latest web technologies and trends. You should sign up for their newsletter because it is a very valuable resource.

Speckyboy Design Magazine – “Speckyboy is an online magazine for designers with its focus on sharing helpful resources, exploring new techniques, sharing useful tips, and inspiring you to build a better web.”

I think that this newsletter is my top favorite. You get tons of information and freebies about the web, development, and design, all in one place. Every newsletter has given me something that is useful. This is one that you will definitely want to sign up for.

The Gig List – “The free, weekly email list for only the most interesting freelance gigs for designers, writers, developers, photographers and other creative people.” This newsletter is from And.co and it gives you links to current openings if you are Freelance or Remote. Their job postings are pretty targeted so you don’t really get listings for any jobs that aren’t related to the Web field.

Package Managers

NPM – “NPM is the package manager for JavaScript and the world’s largest software registry. Discover packages of reusable code — and assemble them in powerful new ways”. This is one of the most used package managers and my personal favorite, and it uses JavaScript as a language. You can install it by itself, but if you plan on using NodeJS at any point, you should install NPM through NodeJS. This is my favorite Package Manager and it is one of the most widely used. It is built off of JavaScript so it is generally the first Package Manager that people new to development learn. Once you learn JavaScript, NPM and NodeJS will be pretty easy for you to get a grasp on.

Password Manager

1Password – “1Password remembers them all for you. Save your passwords and log into sites with a single click. It’s that simple. With 1Password you only ever need to memorize…one password. All your other passwords and important information are protected behind your Master Password, which only you know”. I have been using this for years and it’s never been hacked as far as I know. I would suggest this one because your data is not maintained on their website. This makes it more secure in my opinion. LastPass was hacked and a lot of their data was exposed because it was maintained on the web. This is why I would suggest using 1Password. You can sink all of your data with other devices and computers because the backup is maintained in Dropbox.

Resources

Freestack – “DevDocs is a fast, offline API documentation browser with 100+ docs including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Python, Go, C, C++, jQuery, and more.” This is one of the best tools that I have found for APIs.

Security

Password Generator – “This page offers a better way to create a strong, yet easy to remember passphrase for use with encryption and security programs. Weak passwords and passphrases are one of the most common flaws in computer security. Take a few minutes and learn how to do it right. The information presented here can be used by anyone. No background in cryptography or mathematics is required”. This is the best method that I have found to create unique and secure passwords without using a program or app. Grab five dice and you are good to go.

Text Editor

Sublime Text – “Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, markup, and prose. You’ll love the slick user interface, extraordinary features, and amazing performance.” A Web Developers best text editor. It is great and I use it all the time.